60th Congress, ) SENATE. (Document 

1st Session. f \ No. 143. 



APPEAL IN BEHAT^F OF PROPOSED UNIVERSITY OF 
UNITED STATES. 



Mr. Frye presented the following 



APPEAL OF MEMBEKS OF THE EXECUTIVE COUNCIL OF THE 
NATIONAL UNIVERSITY COMMITTEE OF FOUR HUNDRED, IN 
BEHALF OF THE PROPOSED UNIVERSITY OF THE UNITED 
STATES. 



January 7, 1908. — Ordered to be Drinted. 



Washington, D. C. , December 19, 1907. 
To the honorcMe the Senate of the United States: 

The members in general of your honorable body will not need to be 
more than reminded of the several important steps taken by it during 
the past seventeen years toward the establishment of a graduate 
national university in the District of Columbia — the university oft- 
times proposed, provisionally located, and partially endowed by the 
Father of his Country, also favored and recommended by ten of his 
successors in the Presidential chair, and earnestly advocated by nu- 
merous other statesmen of highest rank, as well as by a multitude of 
the country's distinguished scholars, men of science, and practical 
educators most competent to judge of the country's educational needs. 
They will readilj^ recall the introduction, by Senator George F. 
Edmunds, in 1890, of a bill to establish the University of the United 
States, and its reference to a special committee, afterwards made one 
of the standing committees of the Senate; the printing of 5,000 copies 
of a "Memorial in regard to a National University," in 1892, and thei 
several affirmative reports of the Senate's committee, submitted in 
1893, 1894, 1896, and 1902, by Chairmen Proctor, Hunton, Kyle, and 
Deboe, respectively, and embracing, besides the arguments of the 
committee itself, and hearings before it bj^ many of the most com- 
petent authorities in the country, no less than TOO letters of approval 
from other distinguished statesmen, jurists, officers of the Army and 
Nav3% and 250 college and university presidents — all of them warmly 
indorsing the measure. 

But the recent installation of a number of Senators and the lapse of 
five years without action by either the Senate or its committee, to- 
gether with the prolonged absorption of Senators in matters of press- 
ing importance, will justify a fresh calling of the Senate's attention to 
the subject, with a concise restatement of the case, and the appeal 
now respectfully submitted, in the name of the National University 



>^36-/2-.^ 




2 PEOPOSED UNIVERSITY OF UNITED STATES. LCI. \~\-^ 

Committee of Four Hundred, by the undersigned members of its ex- 
ecutive council, with the request that it may be printed and have any 
reference deemed appropriate. 

In a study of American education four things are especially note- 
worth3% namely: 

1. While, at the beginning, and for a considerable period afterwards, 
the whole field of education w^as mainl}- in possession of the ecclesias- 
tical organizations of the country, there sprang up at length a convic- 
tion, which has since steadily deepened, that the State and National 
Governments, dependent as they are for their security on the highest 
intelligence of the people, have educational obligations most solemn 
and important. Indeed, so deep and moving has been this conviction 
that to-day not onl}^ is there no commonwealth of the American Union 
without its public-school system of such scope and efficiency as to 
qualify students for the collegiate studies, but in the States generall}'^, 
though not in every one, there are 3'et higher institutions, known as 
universities, established by authority of the State, and with endow- 
ments from the General Government in all cases where the public lands 
therein were still owned by the United States at the date of their 
founding. 

2. Notwithstanding all this intelligent interest in educational agen- 
cies — elementary, secondarv, and superior — no institution in the United 
States or in the Western Hemisphere has yet so entirely passed the 
collegiate rank as to constitute a university in the highest sense; that 
is, an institution exclusively devoted to graduate work. The fore- 
most of them can boast of little more than beginnings of it in some of 
their departments. 

3. Even if there were an exclusively graduate university elsewhere 
in the countr}^, or several of them, there are certain offices, many and 
important, as well as national in both name and character, that would 
especiall}' attach to a university at Washington, established by the 
Government and with national ends in view — such, indeed, as could 
be fulfilled by none other. 

4. The chief advocacy of a true universit}- for the countr}- at large 
has been in connection with propositions to establish at Washington 
a graduate national university of the highest possible rank for all the 
States; we might even say for all the American republics, their rep- 
resentatives in Congress assembled (at Philadelphia, in 1891) having 
already given the proposition their unanimous approval. 

That an actual beginning of such an institution was not made long 
ago is one of the strangest facts in our national history. For, as every 
one familiar with what has been done and attempted in American edu- 
cation well knows, it came very near being provided for in the Consti- 
tution itself, George Washington, Charles Pinckney, Benjamin Frank- 
lin, James Madison, and others of the most illustrious framers urging 
s inclusion therein as a means of making it sure, and yielding only 
when exclusive jurisdiction over the District of Columbia had be^n 
conceded to Congress, which body it was believed would be wise 
enough to take such action in the matter as would early realize the 
desires and expectations of the founders of the Republic. 

Hence the earnest ett'orts to secure action by Congress so often made 
by the farsighted Washington, who not only in his messages repeatedly 
urged it upon the Congress, but also by means of many letters to John 



^F8 18 'I9CP 

D. Of a 



PROPOSED UNIVERSITY OF UNITED STATES. 3 

Adams, Edmond Randolph, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, Gov- 
ernor Brooke, Alexander Hamilton, the Commissioners of the District 
of Columbia, and others, as well as in his farewell address, kept the 
subject before the statesmen of his time, and finally went so far as to 
select a site for the institution and to remember it in his last will and 
testament with a bequest of $25jX)00 in stocks of the Potomac Com- 
pany, which at that time were irr high favor. 

Hence the timely efforts of Gustavus Scott, William Thornton, and 
Alexander White, Conmiissioners under the act to establish the tem- 
porary and permanent seat of the Government, who ably supported 
President Washington's recommendations by a memorial to Congress in 
in 1Y96. 

Hence the support of the proposition by ten of Washington's suc- 
cessors in the Presidential office, six of them in unbroken line and four 
within our own time, namely, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James 
Madison, James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, 
Ulysses S. Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes, James A. Garfield, and Ben- 
jamin Harrison, all of whom placed a very high estimate upon the 
service that such a university would render to the country in many 
ways, especially by bringing multitudes of the ambitious young men 
of all the States into friendly association at a common center and for 
a common object — President Madison so high an estimate that, like 
Washington, he strongly urged it upon Congress three times; while 
Presidents Grant, Hayes, Garfield, and Harrison even thought, as 
other statesmen have, that if the high purpose of Washington had 
been duly and early fulfilled there would have been no civil war. 

Hence"^the interest felt by such eminent justices of the Supreme 
Court of the United States as John Hay, John Rutledge, John Mar- 
shall, Joseph Story , John McLean, David Davis, and Salmon P. Chase — 
felt, it may bQ said, by the chief justices generally, from the very 
beginning to the coming of our patriotic present head of the Suprerne 
Court, who for so many years has stood fast for the measure and is 
pleased to still hold his place at the head of the executive council of 
the National University Committee of Four Hundred. 

Hence the deep interest in the university proposition shown by the 
most eminent of cabinet officers along the whole line of Presidential 
Administrations— such heads of Departments as Edmund Randolph, 
Timothy Pickering, Albert Gallatin, Daniel Webster, Henry Clay, 
William M. Evarts, William H. Seward, George S. Boutwell, John 
Sherman, Alexander W. Randall, Carl Schurz, William F. Vilas, 
William E. Chandler, Timothy O. Howe, L. Q. C. Lamar, Augustus 
H. Garland, Redfield Proctor, Oscar S. Strauss, and others. 

Hence the concurrence of such distinguished heads of the United 
States Army and Navy as Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, Gen. William 
Tecumseh Sherman, Lieut. Gen. Philip H. Sheridan, and yet others. 

Hence the support of the proposition by such other of our most 
distinguished public men as Senator George Logan, of Pennsylvania, 
who, while United States Senator, introduced the first national uni- 
versity bill, and in due time reported it without amendment; as 
Samuel Blodgett, author of the first American work on political 
economy, who, while a member of the House of Representatives, re- 
ported to that body, in 1806, no less than 18,000 subscriptions toward 
the university, with $30,000 paid in as a beginning of endowments, 
to become available when Congress should grant the charter; as 



4 PROPOSED UNIVERSITY OF UNITED STATES. 

Samuel Mitchell, of New York, who, as chairman of the Plouse com- 
mittee on the President's message, reported in favor of the univer- 
sity, in 1810; as the scholarly Richard Henry Wilde, of Georgia, 
who, in reporting aflirraatively on President Madison's third recom- 
mendation, at the same time oifered a bill to establish the university; 
as the able Charles W. Atherton, of New Hampshire, who offered 
and saw adopted the House resolution declaring the constitutionality 
of a national university, and as Mark L. Hill, of Massachusetts, who 
ably supported the recommendation of President Monroe. 

Hence the support given to the measure, in the form of resolutions 
by the entire Congress, in 1820, 1823, 1825, and 1832. 

Hence the support accorded by such eminent legislators of a later 
day as Senators Sumner, Patterson, Ingalls, Garland, Car'penter, 
Davis, Hoar, and the great body of Senators of the more recent past, 
whenever the question of the proposed university has come before 
them. 

Hence the unanimous report of the House committee on Education, 
in 1873. 

Hence the support accorded by many of the most distinguished of 
our diplomats, beginning Avith Joel Barlow, minister to France, who 
drafted the first national university bill, and concluding with Gen. 
Horace Porter, late ambassador to France; John A. Kasson, once 
minister to Austria-Hungary and then to Germany ; Oscar S. Straus, 
late minister to Turkey, and David J. Hill, minister to Belgium. 

Hence the advocacy of the university measure throughout the 
whole period of our history as a nation by the foremost of our men of 
science and learning — such men as Benjamin Franklin, Benjamin 
Rush, Josiah Meigs, Edward Cutbush, Thomas Sewall, Thomas Law, 
Alexander Williams, Horace Holley, Charles Caldwell, Alexander 
Dallas Bache, Benjamin Apthorp Gould, Louis Agassiz, Joseph 
Henry, James Hall, Benjamin Pierce, O. M. Mitchell, Arnold W. 
Guyot, Edward Everett, Amos Dean, James Dwight Dana, Theodore 
D. Woolsey, Spencer F. Baird, Hooi:)er C. Van Voorst, Henry H. von 
Hoist, Samuel P. Langley, John F. Norton, Daniel C. Gilman, Alex- 
ander Graham Bell, and others too numerous to mention in this con- 
nection. 

Hence the concurrence of nearly all the most distinguished of 
American ecclesiastics who were ever approached on the subject, 
among them Bishops Alonzo Potter, Henry C. Potter, Ethelbert Tal- 
bot, Henry Y. Satterlee, William Paret, Thomas March Clark, 
Thomas Underwood Dudley, and Thomas F. Starkey, of the Prot- 
estant Ei^iscopal Church; Bishops John P. Newman, Charles C. 
McCabe, David H. Moore, William F. McDowell, and Earl Cranston, 
of the Methodist Episcopal Church ; James McCosh, Francis Lindlev 
Patton, Thomas De Witt Talmage, and Robert S. Booth, of the 
Presbyterian Church; Henry Ward Beecher, Congregationalist ; 
James Dana Boardman, of the Baptist Church, and Edward Everett 
Hale, Unitarian, and present chaplain of the United States Senate — 
even such as have been deeply concerned in the establishment and 
maintenance of institutions of learning in the interest of their re- 
spective denoniinations ; seeing, as they have, that a graduate national 
vmiversity at W^ashington would fulfill important offices that could 
be fulfilled by none other. 



PEOPOSED UNIVEESITY OF UNITED STATES. 5 

Hence the support not only of the State university presidents, as 
would naturall}^ be expected, but also of the eminent heads of the 
more important independent universities, both old and new; for ex- 
ample, Presidents Thomas Hill, of Harvard; Theodore D. Woolsey, 
of Yale; Francis Wayland and E. Benjamin Andrews, of Brown; 
James McCosh and Francis L. Patton, of Princeton; F. A. P. Bar- 
nard and Seth Low, of Columbia ; William Pepper, of the University 
of Pennsylvania; Horace Holley, of Transylvania; P. B. Barringer, 
of the University of Virginia ; James C. Welling, of the Columbian ; 
J. G. Schurman, of Cornell; Daniel C. Gilman, of Johns Hopkins; 
David Starr Jordan, of Leland Stanford ; William R. Harper, of 
the University of Chicago; and Edward B. Craighead, of Tulane— 
in a word, the presidents generally, even to the number of 250. 

Hence the highly important advocacy of the national university 
measure by the State superintendents of public instruction and the 
United States Commissioners of Education, every one, and by the 
National Education Association — the most important educational or- 
ganization in the world, numbering its members by the thousand; 
which body, during the past forty years, has repeatedl}^, with 
unanimity and emphasis, declared its recognition of this high demand 
by resolutions and by the formation, many years ago, of a committee 
of promotion. 

Hence, coming now to what we think of as present time, the unani- 
mous action of the United States Senate in forming a select com- 
mittee of that body, in 1890, to receive and report upon a bill for a 
national university, offered by Senator George F. Edmunds, of Ver- 
mont — a committee significantly entitled " The committee to establish 
the university of the United States," afterwards made a standing 
committee, submitting decided reports in '93, '94, '96, and 1902. 

H[ence the unanimous action of the Pan-Republic Congress, in 1891, 
in adopting a resolution in favor of the establishment at Washington 
of a graduate university of highest rank in the common interest of 
all the American RepulDlics. 

Plence, to conclude this recital, the remarkable facts that nearly 
every one of the Presidents of the United States and the greatest of 
other Americans in every walk of life and in every period of our 
national history who have touched the subject in any way have, with 
almost no exception, declared for the university, and that no American 
of acknowledged greatness, from the days of Washington until this 
present, has raised his voice against the proposition — not one. The 
truth is, no valid objection to such a university as Washington pro- 
posed has ever been made or is possible. 

Accordingly, we are constrained to ask. What has been the matter ? 

WHY THIS DELAY OF AN HUNDEED AND NINETEEN YEARS? 

There has been nothing like it in American history or in any other. 

The delay has not been due, as we have seen, to serious convictions 
that nothing more in the way of university education is needed, as a 
little circle of ambitious heads of institutions have insisted, although 
the wrong thus done to higher education has been very great. 

The delay has not been because of any serious doubt of the Con- 
gressional right to establish such a university. There never was any 



6 PKOPOSED UNIVEESITY OF UNITED STATES. 

room for a real question of this sort, and it has finally ceased to be 
urged. 

The delay has not been because of too large demands by friends of 
the measure, for we are asking of the Government nothing in the 
way of material aid other than that the provision by Washington 
himself be made good — nothing; although fully satisfied that if the 
nation's resources are to be further used for objects not strictly gov- 
ernmental none are more deserving than the establishment of the 
institution of learning most needed and most universally demanded. 
Our faith is great in the wisdom of patriotic citizens of large 
wealth — in the matchless givers of the present and in their worthy 
successors; and when they fully understand the need we believe 
that they will see both the fitness and the moral gain of devoting to 
this purpose gifts even greater than any hitherto accorded and will 
gladly follow the example of Washington and share with him the 
honor of the final realization of his exalted aims. 

The delay has not been due to a serious conviction anywhere, much 
less to a prevailing belief, that the proposed university would weaken 
or in any way injure existing institutions, and such an objection 
would be considered too absurd to require mention had nobody been 
deceived by it. 

In the first place, there is no conceivable way short of violations 
of law, punishable by the courts, in which one institution can, in any 
proper sense, " injure " another. One may, by presenting superior 
attractions, draw to itself students who might otherwise attend else- 
where, and thus acquire a relative importance. The attraction may 
be found in superior location, with better surroundings and condi- 
tions, better buildings and equipments, better instruction, or better 
established and wider reputation ; but each of these things is desirable, 
and to prevent their being oft'ered because some one or more institu- 
tions in the country can not supply them would surely be to wrong 
the great public. Indeed, a general practice upon such a principle 
would forever stop the progress of civilization. As a matter of fact, 
no one of the very few institutions which have opposed the establish- 
ment of a university of the United States was ever known to resist the 
incorporation of any of the great number of others which have sprung 
up since the movement for a national university began, although in 
kind and purpose like themselves, and hence destined to become actual 
competitors. 

It is plain enough, without discussion, that, in case- of an institution 
that is to undertake a work in large part different, indeed in some im- 
portant respects beyond the possibility of execution by any other, and 
hence would leave no room for competition, it is useless to even talk of 
"injury," in however slight a degree. And yet it is by suggestions of 
this sort that the few enemies of the national university measure 
have sought to prevent, and for the time have hindered, the incorpo- 
ration of the proposed university of the United States, and prevented 
its endowment with insured millions by private citizens. 

And right here is found the reason for our persistent contention, 
since a very little inquiry will show beyond all question that such a 
university would not be a damaging competitor of any one of the five 
opposing institutions, even those at Washington, though haying as 
good a right to rise as Johns Hopkins, the University of Chicago, or 



PEOPOSED UNIVERSITY OF UNITED STATES. 7 

any other — indeed, as we have seen, a better reason for rising than 
they; and not only the reasons just referred to, but the very important 
one that the no less than $50,000,000 worth of facilities already here, in 
the forms of museums, libraries, observatories, and other establish- 
ments, are all of them the property, not of any particular city, or 
religious denomination, but of the whole nation, having been provided 
at the common cost, and for the nation's use ; in view, also, of the im- 
portant special national fuiictions which it is to. exercise. 

The delay has not been due to any well-grounded fear that the pro- 
posed university would " get into politics." For provision has al- 
ways been made against any sectarian or political discriminations 
whatsoever in the institution and for the free exposition and dis- 
cussion of all sides of every subject related to governmental policies. 
And this, too, is to be noted that, in proportion as an institution of 
learning attains real digiiity and importance, the politician, as dis- 
tinguished from the statesman, is instinctively constrained to keep 
hands off. In addition to these considerations may be mentioned the 
indisputable fact that in the governmental institutions of learning 
already established, such as the State universities, the United States 
Military and Naval Academies, and the Smithsonian Institution, 
practically no difficulty has ever been found on this score. The prin- 
ciple of political noninterference in American governmental institu- 
tions of learning has been amply vindicated by experience and may 
safely be relied upon for vindication in the future. 

The delay has not been on account of recogiiized faults in the 
university measure. The bill may not be faultless, but it is the fruit 
of much correspondence and many conferences with leading Ameri- 
cans, as also of three protracted sessions of the entire executivt 
council of the National University Committee, the Chief Justice of 
the United States presiding, and has long held its place in the Senate 
and before the country, without a solitary suggestion of material 
change from any quarter, although suggestions have been ofttimes 
invited. Moreover, it has been four times approved ( three times 
unanimously) by the Senate's University Committee. It could not 
have been framed in a more liberal spirit, and there is to-day the 
utmost readiness in the National University Committee to warmly 
welcome and adopt any other plan or form of charter that can be 
made to appear better calculated to accomplish the desired ends. 

What we want and feel that we may reasonably expect without 
much further delay is an act of Congress for the establishment at 
Washington of an exclusively graduate university of the highest 
possible tj^pe, one that shall be not national in name merely, but 
truly national in name, spirit, character, and relationships ; a univer- 
sity that shall ever be, not only in harmony with the best that is in the 
purposes of the Republic, but highly serviceable in the great work of 
insuring to it the most enduring prosperity and the most glorious 
possible destiny. We even venture to hope for a universit}^ that shall 
also be competent to serve the lesser nations, and in time become an 
acknowledged advance-guard in the whole world's march of civiliza- 
tion. 

As carefully planned, it will be unlike any other, and yet have dis- 
tinctly in view the best interests of all others of every grade, and 
systematically work with all for the universal good. Let us demon- 
strate this by pointing out some of its distinctive features: 



8 PROPOSED UNIVERSITY OF UNITED STATES. 

DISTINCTIVE FEATURES OF THE PROPOSED UNIVERSITY. 

1. The University of the United States, when duly established, 
will fittingly complete the American system of public education — 
an office of very great importance, since, without such completion, 
they who have passed through its several grades from the primary 
school ujDward, and have won the college degrees, must suffer the in- 
calculable loss of that still needed constraining influence which leads 
to further attainments, and which can only be furnished in full 
measure by a concluding public institution whose high field is the 
whole vast realm of what lies beyond in every department of learn- 
ing and of what is yet possible to the genius of man through sys- 
tematic inquiry. In a word, the proposed national university by 
furnishing the requisite climax to the existing series of our public 
educational agencies will increase the interest of the youth of the 
country in the highest learning, lead greater numbers into all our 
colleges and universities, and in time relieve our boastful Republic 
of the dishonor of holding a place but second in things which are 
vital, as compared with some of the other powers. 

2. While maintaining all possible cooperative relations with other 
institutions, e. g., by exchange of student privileges and of favors 
among professors, investigators, curators, and other officials — in a 
word, such relations of whatever sort as ma}^ be found both feasible 
and advantageous — it will in general terms supplement others by 
supplying graduate instruction only in every department of study, 
notably in matters which concern the national welfare; furthermore, 
will tend to increase the patronage of other institutions by making 
them necessary gateways to the opportunities and honors it is to 
offer. 

3. While access to the instruction will be accorded to all persons 
competent to receive it, full membership and its degrees, strictly 
limited to the doctorate, will be accorded to such only as shall have 
already received a college or university title from some institution 
recognized for this purpose by the university authorities — a condi- 
tion at present imposed by no institution in America, and yet one that 
will stimulate all others to do their best work. 

4. By this exercise of the right to determine what institutions are 
deserving of recognition, it will insure, as no other institution can, 
the needed adoption of high and uniform standards in all the colle- 
giate institutions of the country, establish a common measure for 
degrees, and afford the most healthful stimulation to every class of 
educational agencies. 

5. By the dignity of its high rank and the facilities offered by its 
great schools of letters, science, iDhilosophy, the practical arts, the fine 
arts, medicine, law, diplomacy, statesmanship, and yet others, it will 
become, as no other institution can, a means of educating at home the 
thousands of our graduates who at some risk now seek in other lands 
the facilities we fail to furnish. 

6. For the same reason, it will become to all the other institutions 
a very important source of increasing uumbers and superior teachers. 

7. Because of its national character, it will draw to a common cen- 
ter, as none other can, great numbers of the graduate students of all 
sections, joromote unity of feeling among them, and thus become in a 
high degree a nationalizing influence upon the country at large. 



PROPOSED UNIVEESITY OF UNITED STATES. 9 

8. Because national and of highest rank, it will bring to this world 
center many thousands of foreign graduates for a completion of their 
studies under the influence of American ideas and institutions — stu- 
dents whose return, after years of contact with free institutions 
(should they not remain to our own advantage), would promote the 
cause of liberal government everywhere. 

9. For like reasons and because of the high place this country holds 
among the nations, the University of the United States would very 
strongly attract men of genius from every quarter of the globe to its 
professorships, fellowships, and laboratories, thus increasing the in- 
tellectual forces of both university and country. 

10. By its graduate standards of admission in all its departments, 
thus insuring to the professional as well as nonprofessional pursuits 
that general information and that mental discipline which are re- 
quisite to the highest success, it will greatly advance the various pro- 
fessions in rank and real value. 

11. With the collections, laboratories, and workers here present, it 
will greatly encourage all other institutions engaged in the work of 
original research and investigation, and thus become a very great 
force in the upbuilding of new arts and professions by the applica- 
tions of science. 

12. By its central faculties and grand cluster of technical and pro- 
fessional schools it will early represent the sum of what is known and 
become to the whole world a great new fountain of knowledge and 
inspiration. 

13. In turn, its scientific workers will be ever ready to meet the 
demands of the Government in whatsoever field of inquiry, and will 
feel in duty bound to qualify gifted students for any and every branch 
of the public service. 

14. Being not in name only, but in fact, free from the narrowing 
influence of sectarianism in religion and of partisanship in politics, it 
will be ah elevating power within its own domain and in the nation. 

15. It Avill, in the nature of the case, exert, as no private' or sec- 
tarian institution can, a most salutary influence upon the several 
branches and departments of the Government and upon civil affairs 
generally, elevating their standards and increasing their efficiency. 

16. It will clignifj^ the national capital and make it yet more 
attractive to all Americans and to the foreign world. 

IT. Because of its comprehensiveness, highest possible standards, 
exalted aims, and distinguished service to the cause of human learn- 
ing, it will command the admiration of the people and greatly 
strengthen the patriotic sentiment of the country. 

18. Because national, it will be to the whole American people a 
potent means of intellectual advancement, give new dignity and 
honor to the Republic, and contribute in a high degree to its 
supremacy among the nations. 

19. Because, when once rightly established and duly recognized 
everywhere, it will have become a mighty means of promoting the 
world's progress in civilization. 

And so the reasons multiply, while the worn-out objections vanish, 
and we find ourselves more than justified in declaring with emphasis 



10 PBOPOSED UNIVERSITY OF UNITED STATES. 

there is nowhere discoverable a single valid excuse for delay in the 
establishment of the proposed university; while the important and 
very decided demands for it are many, have been long continued, 
and inhere in the characteristics of the American people, in the na- 
ture of the government they have established and would perpetuate, 
and in the important relation our country sustains to all the other 
powers. 

SOME ACTUAL CAUSES OF THE DELAY. 

There is a great difference sometimes, as in this case, between a 
reason and a cause ; for, while a reason is always entitled to attention 
and more or less consideration, a cause may be ignored, or promptly 
arraig-ned, condemned, and brought to judgment. 

Earlier we spoke of the delay of the coming university for more 
than a century as a fact next to incomprehensible; yet we have had 
in mind several very important causes which have been quite mani- 
fest, namely : 

First. At the end of barely half a century we had hardly at- 
tained, as a whole people, to such a realization of its possible value 
as to make the establishment of a university like the one proposed 
seem so imperative as to lead to the requisite efforts and sacrifices. 

Second. It was plain that the cost Avould be great, while the coun- 
try was yet poor and multimillionaires were scarcely knoAvn. Some 
delay was then natural and may be generously pardoned. 

Third. There Avas the interruption of the civil war, Avith the po- 
litical conflicts leading up to and groAving out of it — conflicts all- 
engrossing and of long continuance. 

Fourth. The very unfortunate misconceptions of the few opposing 
institutions referred to — each of them so circumstanced and so repre- 
sented at the seat of government as to facilitate the working of ad- 
verse plans. 

Again, with the Avonderful growth of the Eepublic in area, wealth, 
and power, too many, have ceased to be controlled by the lofty ideals 
which the fathers cherished — have been to a serious degree material- 
ized, and CA^en made A^ainglorious, on the grounds that we are not 
only possessed of a genius and enterprise unparalleled, but ha\^e, 
through these gifts of Heaven, already made such achievements in 
the productive industries, in the means of intercommunication, and 
in commercial enterprises, as well as such increase of possessions, far 
and near, with yet greater armies and navies in the coming, as make 
us look imperial and seem to leave almost nothing else to be desired. 

In a rude general sense, these astonishing claims have been so far 
justified that it should hardly be surprising that the multitude of 
those directly concerned in producing so great results should, for a 
time, have lost themseh^es in self-satisfaction; forgetting that, all 
put together and important as they are, these things constitute but 
the beginnings of our civilization, and that in laying so substantial 
a foundation they have only made the United States of America 
supremely competent to achievements yet greater, because higher 
and more enduring, and which are, therefore, imperatively demanded. 

But AA'e have a right to expect that the chosen men of the whole 
nation, who have been empowered to shape and direct the destinies 
of the Republic, will be found possessed not only of more than ordi- 



PROPOSED UNIVERSITY OF UNITED STATES. 11 

nary breadth and foresight, as well as of practical wisdom, but also 
of so pure a patriotism that it will make them superior not only to 
partiality and prejudice, which, in matters of this sort, have their 
root in merely personal, local, or denominational ambitions, but supe- 
rior also to even the most insidious approaches of a spirit of selfish- 
ness and injustice in whatsoever form or guise. For it is such men 
and sucti only who will understand the conditions of real greatness, 
and will hold their observance to be a most solemn and sacred obli- 
gation. 

Such men will readily comprehend that the source of Grecian 
greatness is to be sought not in the victories which so quickly made 
her mistress of southern Europe and northern Africa and for a time 
the supreme physical force among the nations, but rather in the 
things so gloriously accomplished by her illustrious philosophers, 
poets, orators, men of science, artists, and historians — that but for 
these galaxies of her men of superlative genius and exalted aims, 
who gave themselves to the elevation and happiness of their people, 
and who, to the honor of those who ruled, were always encouraged 
and fostered by the state, there would have been no " glorious Greece " 
in human historj^ ; that while her physical conquests were but fleeting 
and have left her a mite only in the geographic world, her marvelous 
achievements in the intellectual and spiritual realms still fill the 
whole earth and will continue to shine as white lights through all 
time. 

Such men as we have a right to count on at the Capitol of the nation 
will likewise realize that the glories of Rome are to be sought, not 
in the conquests made both East and West by her legioiis, but rather 
in the peaceful spread of her language, literature, art, science, ethics, 
philosophy, and law; that these, the fruits of her beneficent genius, 
at once various and splendid, have been and will ever remain her 
own chief glories and a priceless legacy to the human race. 

Such men will understand that the enduring greatness of this, our 
own Republic, greatest of all, is to be made sure, not so much by a 
reckless increase of her population, a stupendous growth of her many 
productive industries, ancl the spread of her commerce, or by such 
increase of her widely scattered possessions as will seem to demand 
an immense standing army and numberless ships of war ; not so much 
by mere material gains of any and every sort, as by the increasing 
intelligence of her people of every class and a faithful cultivation of 
all the virtues upon philosophic as well as religious grounds ; by such 
mastery of economic science as is essential to an unfailing material 
prosperity ; by an increase of zeal in the use of means for the highest 
possible intellectual culture of those who aspire ; by such encourage- 
ment as can be given to those who are especially competent to the 
advancement of knowledge by means of researches and investigations, 
and by such inculcation of the principles of morality, individual, 
municipal. State, and national as will insure to us the respect, con- 
fidence, and hearty good V'^iil of other governments and peoples, and 
so make this, our Republic, already great, at once secure in peace 
and a guiding star for all the groping nations of the world. 

It Avas Americans of this high type who laid the foundations of the 
Republic, and, happily, there have been such men to grace the records 
of our national legislature, as well as the annals of our general his- 



12 PROPOSED UNIVERSITY OF UNITED STATES. 

tory, from the beginning until now. But they have not always had 
their way, for it seems that by the rules and usages under which our 
legislation is conducted a few unfriendly or unwisely committed 
Members of either House may embarrass and delay a very great 
measure for a lifetime or longer. 

A fifth, and one of the saddest causes of delay since the modern, 
more systematic, and persistent agitation of the subject began, is 
found in such lack of attention, and hence want of appreciation and 
active interest on the part of some in authority who are usually 
accounted patriotic in sentiment, as have made it possible for the un- 
wisely ambitious managers and supporters of four or five institutions 
to work their adverse schemes. 

Nevertheless, the interest of the Senate, as a body, is put beyond 
question by a succession of friendly acts, which, though in part 
already referred to, are here consecutively mentioned, namely : 

1. The formation of a " Select committee to establish the Univer- 
sity of the United States," on June 4, 1890. 

2. The action of the Senate, on December 17, 1890, upon motion of 
Senator Cullom, in continuing said committee during the Fifty-second 
Congress. 

3. The unanimous action of the Senate, on March 2, 1891, in fur- 
ther continuing the said committee. 

4. The unanimous order of the Senate, on motion of Senator 
Proctor, on August 3, 1892, for the printing of the " Memorial in 
regard to a National University," and again, on August 5, 1892, in 
unanimously ordering, on motion of Senator Sherman, the printing 
of 5,000 extra copies of said memorial, for the use of the Senate. 

5. The unanimous agreement of the Senate's select committee on 
the able report submitted on March 3, 1893, by Senator Proctor, 
chairman, which, however, was submitted at the very close of the 
Fifty-second Congress and could not be acted upon at that time. 

G. The Fifty-third Congress placed Senator Hunton, of Virginia, 
at the head of the University Committee, who likewise, in the course 
of time, submitted a unanimous report, and finally succeeded in get- 
ting it before the Senate, and in having it afRrmatively discussed by 
himself and Senators Vilas and Kyle, though at so late a day that 
the coming in of bills having the right of way again prevented final 
action. 

7. Next there was the very liberal action of the Senate in placing 
the " Select committee to establish the university of the United 
States " among the standing committees. 

8. The report submitted by Senator Kyle, chairman, on March 10, 
1896, which included important hearings from a number of citizens 
of first distinction in the several fields of education, science, letters, 
and statesmanship, carefully j^repared communications in advocacy 
of the measure from others, and no less than 400 briefer indorsements 
of it, by letter, from the most competent of advocates in all the States. 

9. True, the university cause came to a dead halt through the 
neglect, most unpardonable, of a Senator from Marjdand, by whom 
four full years were worse than wasted. And yet the abiding interest 
of the Senate again became manifest in a Congress of earnest effort 
on the part of its committee's chairman, Mr. Deboe, of Kentucky, 
who, on April 1, 1902, submitted a very full and convincing report, 



PEOPOSED UNIVEESITY OF UNITED STATES. 13 

consisting of a brief statement of what had been done to secure action, 
a showing of the character of the opposition made, and of the status 
of the enterprise at that time, together with numerous hearings, 
papers, addresses, 300 additional letters of approval from eminent 
men in all parts of the country, and a list of members of the Na- 
tional University Committee of Four Hundred; the whole making 
a volume of 192 pages, which was printed in a large edition, and, if 
we have been correctly informed, with but one objection in the Senate. 
Chairman Deboe tried in vain, however, to get the pending bill taken 
up by the Senate. Other measures in number crowded to the front 
and kept it back to the end of the Fifty-seventh Congress. 

That was in 1902, since which time until now, though often and 
earnestly petitioned for, no meeting of the Senate's University Com- 
mittee has been called. 

It can not be doubted that the honorable Senate will pardon the 
freedom with which we have spoken, in view of the very serious 
nature of the facts recited; in view also of the important favors so 
promptly granted by it upon simple request of existing private and 
denominational university organizations meanwhile, and of the diffi- 
culty we have, therefore, in understanding why it has not yet been 
pleased to put upon this our national measure, "to which it so stands 
committed before the world, the seal of its approval after seventeen 
years of effort and anxious waiting on the part of a whole nation of 
educators and a multitude of other friends of the higher learning in 
all the States. Nor can it be questioned, after this quite full state- 
ment of the case, that a reasonable efficiency will hereafter charac- 
terize the discharge of duly by those who, under the rules of the 
Senate, are able either to forward or hinder a cause so important, and 
which, considering the efforts and sacrifices made in its behalf by so 
long a line of the foremost of patriots, should now be regarded as 
only less than sacred. 

In view of what is proposed and of the historic record referred to, 
the Senate would have been fully justified in chartering the Univer- 
sity of the United States without the formal preliminary of provid- 
ing a special committee. The known views of the ablest scholars and 
statesmen of the past hundred and more years of the Republic, sup- 
ported by no less than eleven of the Chief Magistrates, by the repeated 
declarations of the National Educational Association during a long 
period, and by official showings, full and unanswerable, after exhaust- 
ive studies in the field universal of the higher education — all these 
would seem to have furnished the amplest justification for prompt 
action upon the Edmunds bill of 1890, 

And yet, as already shown, there have been no less than eight Con- 
gresses without the final requisite action — five of them marked by 
the Senate's cordial agreement upon affirmative reports, all but one 
unanimous, and the other three Congresses without so much as a 
meeting of the Senate's standing committee. 

Bearing in mind the readiness with which the several institutions 
known as universities in the District of Columbia have been char- 
tered, rechartered, and otherwise remarkably favored, one can not 
but be struck by the contrast ; and we are accordingly left to supply 
an explanation the best we can. 

We can imagine how men with more of personal or local pride 
than love of country, or of learning, might prefer to maintain a 



14 PROPOSED UNIVERSITY OF UNITED STATES. 

fancied supremacy for the institutions with which they may have 
been or are connected, for we have seen this same spirit manifested 
by local and denominational colleges toward the rising State uni- 
versities. Nevertheless, those universities have risen and are now 
rising, for the great bod}'^ of the American people are intelligent 
enough to recognize the value of the amplest jDOSsible means of edu- 
cation, wholly free from the warping influence of any prejudice. 
Moreover, the opposing institutions have not onh^ not been injured, 
but have greatly grown and prospered under the influence of an in- 
creasing general interest in education consequent on the new appre- 
ciation ot it thus manifested by the State governments and on the 
growing demand for learning and intellectual discipline, both as qual- 
ifications for important trusts and as conditions of honorable stand- 
ing and of greater happiness, whether in private or public life. 

Just so will it be with the opposing universities in their relations 
with the national university when once established and in active oper- 
ation. Besides this, we are bound to hold the general welfare supe- 
rior to the demands of any mere sentiment of pride or ambition, 
whether personal or local — most emphatically superior, if such de- 
mands are clearly opposed to the common good, as is the case with 
the opposition above referred to, in its relation to hundreds of col- 
leges and universities which are in full accord with the national 
university measure, as well as against the recorded judg-ment of the 
great body of American scholars, scientists, and statesmen during the 
entire life of the nation. 

We are still confident that the interests of the higher learning and 
of the country would be best promoted by a union of the university 
forces at Washington in one* great institution, as but lately was so 
nearly agreed upon, and are yet ready for such union on terms alto- 
gether just and most liberal to all. But if the existing institutions 
here prefer a separate and wholly independent life, let them continue 
thus, with ever-increasing prosperity. The more they prosper in a 
useful and honorable career, the more we shall rejoice. For if, in- 
deed, honorably and patriotically devoted to the advancement of 
learning and duly concerned for the honor and welfare of the coun- 
try, they will not stand against the establishment of a university 
like the one proposed, with very special and important ends in view, 
both national and universal, but will rather cultivate a liberality of 
sentiment and seek to strengthen themselves yet more by friendly 
and even cooperative relations. For. in the first place, since such a 
university as we ask for is a thing of destiny, there can be no great 
profit in further delay; and, secondly, inasmuch as its characteristic 
features will, as we have seen, make it a real help to each of them, 
while at the same time fulfilling a vastly important mission, pecul- 
iarly its own and otherwise impossible of fulfillment, it is evidently 
worse than folly to oppose. 

Having thus with some fullness brought to the notice of your honor- 
able body the facts and considerations which most clearly concern the 
establishment of the proposed University of the United States, be- 
cause of our regard for the American Senate, as of first rank among 
the legislative bodies of the world, and of our abiding faith in its 
high purpose in this great matter, notwithstanding the delays from 
which the measure has so seriously suffered, we now come to you with 
confidence. 



PEOPOSED UNIVERSITY OF UNITED STATES. 15 

We come not only in the name of the National University Com- 
mittee of Four Hundred, which body of competent Americans we 
more especially represent, but also supported by the emphatic decla- 
rations of the National Educational Association, many times repeated 
since the appointment of its committee of promotion in 1869, as well 
as by the advocacy of the American Association of State University 
Presidents — all added to the support given to the general proposition 
by the many illustrious citizens who have so ably championed the 
cause independently during the past hundred and twenty years. 

We come, moreover, in the name of the numberless intelligent and 
patriotic Americans so well represented by a liberal public press, and 
in behalf of our beloved country itself, nay, of the cause universal of 
human advancement, and would respectfully present to you this our 
most earnest and urgent appeal, praying for the Senate's final affirma- 
tive action at the earliest possible day. 

And. D. White. 

J. B. Henderson. 

Eppa Hunton. 

Nelson A. Miles. 

George Dewey. 

Hilary A. Herbert. 

Simon Newcomb. 

John Lee Carroll. 

Merrill E. Gates. 

John W. Hoyt. 

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